


Popcorn and Penguin Classics

by lovesrogue36



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Literary References & Allusions, Oscar Wilde - Freeform, Reading Aloud, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:01:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesrogue36/pseuds/lovesrogue36
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles sneaks in Rachel's window and they bond over popcorn, beer and Oscar Wilde. For an evening, they almost feel normal. | Set in Willoughby, prior to the start of Season 2</p>
            </blockquote>





	Popcorn and Penguin Classics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [buttercups3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercups3/gifts).



> Completely indulgent and fluffy but hope it brightens your blue Christmas, butters. *hugs*
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Revolution nor am I associated with any of the cast or crew.
> 
> All direct quotes from The Picture of Dorian Gray are italicized.

Rachel sat propped up in her childhood bed, several blankets pulled up to her chest in spite of the mid-September heat. She rested a lukewarm cup of tea on her knees, the candles on her nightstand flickering as a draft blew in under the door.

She sipped at her cup, a touch more bitter than she’d have liked. Dad never would put sugar in her tea, even when it wasn’t a precious commodity.

He always tried to get her to cut down on caffeine too. Fat chance.

Her eyes darted across the room to the bookshelf, stacked with haphazard books and journals, the pages of her entire life bowing the shelves under their weight. Photo albums and H.G. Wells and sparkly girlhood diaries and Tolkien and the _big book of crazy._

The one she wanted tonight, though, was up on the third shelf, the one lined with her dearest and most dog-eared, neatly alphabetized by last name, just as they had been since the sixth grade. Rachel found herself reluctant to emerge from the mound of covers she had created but a particular paperback was calling for her. After several more sips of nearly-cold tea, she pushed the blankets back and slid out of bed.

She was two strides across the room when a tap at the second-story window had her jolting around in surprise, tea sloshing over her thin robe and the hardwood floor. Rachel stared at the window with wide eyes, a shriek dying on her lips. Miles was perched outside on the slanted roof, eyebrow raised as if to say ‘let me in.’

Setting her teacup down on the windowsill, nightgown clinging to her stomach with tea stains, Rachel pushed the window open. “ _What_ are you _doing?_ ”

He held up a tin bucket, shaking it. “I brought popcorn.”

She arched an eyebrow, unimpressed, so he held up the two bottles clutched in his other hand. “And beer.”

Rachel shook her head, a tiny grin tugging at her lips as she stepped aside. “Well, how can I say no to popcorn and beer?”

He handed over the bottles, ducking his head to climb through her window.

“How did you get up here with all this?” she asked, shutting the window behind him.

Miles squinted at the bucket, the bottles and her in turn. “Wasn’t easy.”

“You could have used the door, you know.” She reached up, plucking leaves out of his hair, no doubt from the tree outside her window.

He grunted, shooting a glance at the closed bedroom door. “Your dad: not my biggest fan.”

“Ah, the motto of my high school boyfriends,” Rachel teased nostalgically, palming the knife off his belt and slicing into the wax that sealed their bottles. He snatched the knife back a little too sharply; she ignored his quick look at her scarred wrists, just tapped the neck of her bottle against his. “Cheers.”

They stood there in silence for a long moment, sipping at their beers, the candlelight soft and warm. “Am I interrupting your night?” he asked finally, nodding to the bookshelf she’d been making a beeline for when he knocked.

Rachel followed his gaze, resting the bottle against her lips. “Nah. I was just going to spend the evening with Oscar.”

“…the Grouch?”

She stared at him for several beats before laughter bubbled out of her unbidden. “ _Wilde_.”

“Oh.”

Rachel had to set her beer on the nightstand, fingers pinched over the bridge of her nose, as her laughter dissolved into unladylike snorts and giggles. He chucked a piece of popcorn at her but it only made her laugh harder, sinking onto the bed and dragging him down with her.

Miles rolled his eyes, lips pressed together over a reluctant grin which he promptly hid behind his beer, sliding his fingers in between hers.

She rested her head on his shoulder, still chuckling softly as she reached into the bucket for a handful of popcorn. “Come on, if Dad’s going to kill us, we might as well earn it.” Reaching down, she yanked open the nightstand drawer and pulled out a ratty old t-shirt before turning her back on him and stripping out of her damp nightgown. Rachel could practically feel him turning embarrassed-aroused as she tugged the long shirt on over bare skin. Crawling into bed, she patted the mattress beside her.

Miles stared at her, eyebrow arched in that particular way Charlie seemed to have picked up. She swallowed hard at the thought of her daughter, miles away and with god-knows-who. “In or out, Marine?”

He sighed, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it on the edge of the bed. Toeing off his boots, he flopped down beside her and planted the popcorn bucket between them.

“Where did you get popcorn, anyway?”

“Cynthia made it. Pretty sure she thinks I’m a charity case. She keeps bringing food by the studio.”

Rachel scoffed, gesturing for her beer. He pressed it into her hand and she sipped at it, savoring the crude, hoppy alcohol. “I can only imagine what Aaron’s told her about ‘Stu Redman.’”

He rolled his eyes, crunching on a handful of popcorn and washing it down with a gulp of beer. “So what exactly is the difference between Oscar the Grouch and Oscar Wilde?”

“One is a muppet who lives in a garbage can and the other is a 19th century playwright arrested for homosexuality?”

“Right. So quite a bit then.”

“You really never read Wilde in high school?”

“I don’t think I read much of anything in high school.”

She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, shaking her head. “You would have been one of the quietly tortured musicians sneaking in my bedroom window, wouldn’t you?”

“Some things never change.”

Rachel rolled her eyes, tossing back the last of her beer and leaning over him, breasts brushing his chest.

Unintentional, until it wasn’t.

“Bring me that orange book, on the third shelf?” She pointed, raising her eyebrows at him, and Miles groaned, hauling himself out of bed.

“This one?”

“No, the next one,” Rachel corrected, eyes following him as he retrieved the book and shuffled back into bed, tossing it to her.

“You know, I’m not completely illiterate. I _have_ heard of Dorian Gray,” he sniped, gesturing to the book as he moved the popcorn bucket to the floor, arms sliding around her.

“ _Heard of_ and _read_ are not the same things.” She thumbed the book open to the first page, settling back against the pillow. “Chapter One.”

“Really, Rachel?”

“Mhmm. Chapter One. _The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn_ ,” Rachel read aloud, shivering as he sat up, the covers falling from their bodies. She stumbled over the next few words, gaze darting away from the page as he stripped off his shirt and tossed it to the floor. “ _From the- corner_ \- What are you doing?”

Miles cleared his throat, darting a glance over his shoulder at her without answering. He rolled over her, one hand braced on the mattress as he slid her t-shirt up, thin panties standing out against the bare skin of her stomach and thighs. “You were saying?” he mumbled, drawing the sheet up over his head and pressing a kiss to the curve of her hip.

“Uh- Right.” Rachel coughed, shaking her head. “ _From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a-_ ” His fingers curled beneath her panties, dipping into the wet heat between her legs, even as his tongue swept over the fabric with light, irregular pressure.

She moaned, resisting the urge to push a hand into his hair, her mouth watering. Instead, she only lifted the edge of the sheet, lips pursed. “Are you even listening?” Her voice sounded scratchy and hoarse even to her own ears, not nearly as composed as she had been hoping for.

“Uh huh. Continue.” His fingers hooked beneath her knees, spreading her wider apart on either side of him.

Rachel swallowed hard, taking a ridiculous amount of time to find her place again as he placed warm, open-mouthed kisses down the inside of her thigh. “- _honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid jade-faced painters of Tokio who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion_.”

She thought, somehow, Wilde probably would have approved of the filthy things Miles was doing, her panties pulled aside with two fingers and the tip of his tongue pressed in, out, light, teasing circles and shallow, shuddering thrusts. “Oh god. Jesus, Miles,” she mumbled, her back arching off the bed. One leg hooked over his shoulder, the book falling shut with just one finger holding her place.

Reaching down, blind, she tugged on his bare shoulder, fingertips grazing the thin chain at his throat. “Miles-”

He lifted his head, tossing the sheet back, the slightest, smuggest look on his face. Shifting his weight to his hands, he lifted himself over her until they were nearly face to face, his feet hanging off the end of the small bed. Brushing his lips over hers, smirking at the way she chased after the brief pressure, he nodded to the book dangling from her hand. “You haven’t even made it through the first page.”

Rachel glanced at the bent Penguin Classic, biting her lip, toes curling. “You’ve probably got the gist of it. Guy has a painting,” she surged up to kiss him, tongue swiping across his bottom lip, “painting ages instead of him.”

“Sounds familiar. Maybe I read the Cliff Notes,” Miles mumbled into her mouth, hand cupped at her jaw and hips grinding down into hers, even as she tossed the book over his shoulder. Her fingers flew to his belt, releasing his buckle and buttons so he could kick his pants off, his own hands busy wrenching the panties down her thighs.

She moaned, short clipped nails digging into his ass as he slid inside her, hot gasps puffing out against her collarbone. “ _Shit_ , Rachel.”

Turning her head, she caught his mouth with hers, drinking him down more furiously and gratefully than she had the beer. His calloused hands slid up beneath her t-shirt, skimming curves gently rounded with children and age. The pads of his thumbs flicked at her nipples and Rachel felt herself tighten, slick and tense, her arms winding up around him.

His hips jerked against hers and she dug her fingers into his shoulder. “Wait for me-” she pleaded, eyes screwed shut and her teeth in her lip.

Miles’ thumb smashed indelicately between them, graceless, but it was enough and she was coming on him, breath caught in her chest and muscles seized with a tension too-long ignored. He pulled back, kissing away her moan at the sudden emptiness inside her, his body cramping between her thighs.

The sheets were sticky beneath them and her copy of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ probably had a few new war wounds, but Rachel really couldn’t care less, not with the heavy weight of him on top of her and the familiar scent of him on her pillow.

Miles retrieved the book from the end of the bed, settling in with his arms wrapped around her. He opened the book, licking his finger to turn the page. “Now where were we?” he asked, quiet, rhetorical, as he skimmed the page. “Mm, right. _The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ_.”

His voice, low and gravelly, was probably better suited to Hemingway but she fell asleep with her head on his chest, no matter.

 

 


End file.
